Bloomberg would have pulled no support. Cuban just likes to talk about running, I don't think he really wants to get into politics.

A Bloomberg or Cuban type, i.e. someone in the middle who would pull never Trumpers, centrists and Dems who didn't want socialism.

I think Cuban would have been too lightweight to have got any momentum. Bloomberg would have had the ballast to shift some votes around, a bit like a disturbance in the oort cloud, and that could have impacted the final result.

If they want a successful run at the Whitehouse they need someone more charismatic and natural in front of the camera than Hiilary (that's a high bar).They want a relative outsider with few political scandals or years of alt-right media foaming at the mouth from years of discrediting them.They should have someone as far removed from the current POTUS as possible.They could use someone able to play the oppressed/minority card - a woman, a person of colour, or both!They could use the relative of a recent President one more time.

the POTUS would probably be Bernie right now cause a majority of Democrats voted for Trump because they got pissed by what the DNC did with Bernie

True. Hilariously a few people on here were convinced Hillary had a better chance than Bernie. Deep down they know they were spectacularly wrong.

Sanders vs Trump would have almost certainly meant a real 3rd party run by a Bloomberg or Cuban type. Not only is there no real evidence Sanders would have beaten Trump straight up, he would have had to deal with that 3rd party centrist, too.

The idea that a self-confessed socialist would have walked it to the White House is hilariously misguided.

the POTUS would probably be Bernie right now cause a majority of Democrats voted for Trump because they got pissed by what the DNC did with Bernie

True. Hilariously a few people on here were convinced Hillary had a better chance than Bernie. Deep down they know they were spectacularly wrong.

Sanders vs Trump would have almost certainly meant a real 3rd party run by a Bloomberg or Cuban type. Not only is there no real evidence Sanders would have beaten Trump straight up, he would have had to deal with that 3rd party centrist, too.

The idea that a self-confessed socialist would have walked it to the White House is hilariously misguided.

Just in case any intelligent but less informed commentators might think Bones has a point:

Quote:

It is impossible to say what would have happened under a fictional scenario, but Sanders supporters often dangle polls from early summer showing he would have performed better than Clinton against Trump. They ignored the fact that Sanders had not yet faced a real campaign against him. Clinton was in the delicate position of dealing with a large portion of voters who treated Sanders more like the Messiah than just another candidate. She was playing the long game—attacking Sanders strongly enough to win, but gently enough to avoid alienating his supporters. Given her overwhelming support from communities of color—for example, about 70 percent of African-American voters cast their ballot for her—Clinton had a firewall that would be difficult for Sanders to breach.

When Sanders promoted free college tuition—a primary part of his platform that attracted young people—that didn’t mean much for almost half of all Democrats, who don’t attend—or even plan to attend—plan to attend a secondary school. In fact, Sanders was basically telling the working poor and middle class who never planned to go beyond high school that college students—the people with even greater opportunities in life—were at the top of his priority list.

So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

Could Sanders still have won? Well, Trump won, so anything is possible. But Sanders supporters puffing up their chests as they arrogantly declare Trump would have definitely lost against their candidate deserve to be ignored.

You don't get to mock other people for not understanding American politics if you think Bernie Sanders would have beaten Trump easily. Or at least, you don't get to do it without being roundly mocked

Last I heard, a ton of people claimed the understood American politics said Trump had no chance of winning in 2016. It was widely mocked and seen as ridiculous.

There's plenty of reason to suggest that given Tump lost the popular vote but won out thanks the rust belt states plus Clinton's strong personal lack of appeal and even strong level of hate. Remember Sanders had quite similar suggestions as Trump on immigration and blue collar industries but in much more warm and embracing language. It's not a case he needed to pull votes to win, he just needed to stop Trumps appeal and by many accounts he would have negated much of Trump's appeal to those key areas and been more appealing than Clinton with her dodgy past, embrace of SJW politics. Remember Clinton lost a lot of voters.

All the socialist labels thrown at Bernie had already been thrown with as much force as possible at Obama and Obamacare. It was an election the Dems didn't need to win, only not lose by to much and Bernie would have likely done that.

Last week, Bijan asked if I would address Kevin Drum’s argument that Bernie Sanders would have lost “in a landslide.” The tl; dr answer is that I didn’t find it very convincing, particularly the “landslide” part.

I haven’t written about whether Sanders would have won because it’s unknowable. There are just too many factors at play, many of which cannot be meaningfully measured. There’s also a meta-problem, which is that a Bernie Sanders who could win the Democratic nomination would just be a different candidate. When evaluating the comparative chances of the actually existing Sanders to Clinton, I would look at Pennsylvania and see him doing a little better to stop the bleeding in white rural areas but also being less effective at mobilizing people of color in urban areas, with the end result probably being a wash. But, of course, a Bernie Sanders who did well enough among urban minorities to win the nomination would be a different story. And there’s a second, related reason I haven’t discussed it: He didn’t have a path to the Democratic nomination. He pretty much maxed out how well a candidate without longstanding ties to the party from a small, white, rural state can do. I would say the same thing about Biden. I do think people are (understandably) glossing over some of the flaws and limitations as a candidate Biden revealed in two absolutely disastrous primary runs. But given the way the Electoral College played out, it’s possible that Biden could have won, even while doing no better or a little worse than Clinton in the popular vote (I can see the case for him holding Pennsylvania as much stronger than the case for Bernie, for example.) But I think it’s moot. Somewhat distressingly, “Hillary Clinton, even closer to the financial industry, but an affable white guy from Scranton” might be a better general election candidate in 2016, but what that formula is not is a viable path to beating Clinton for the the Democratic nomination. (For all the talk about Clinton and the DNC “clearing the field”, especially when you’re dealing with figures as prominent as Biden it’s a fine line between “pushed out” and “concluded I couldn’t win.”)

But the first point applies across the board, and it’s why I don’t think Drum has the goods. He focuses solely on a single variable, and that can never be a good answer. Sanders presumably would have been seen as being to the left of Clinton, and small sample caveats aside there is political science evidence that this would be a net negative. Now, I agree with Drum that the pundit’s fallacy argument for Bernie winning is extremely unpersuasive. In addition to the general evidence, it seems to involve a lot of projection. The economic anxiety of some marginal Trump voters is very real, but it doesn’t follow from this that social democratic solutions are what they’re looking for. And the pundit’s fallacy just can’t explain why marginal Trump voters are also voting for completely bland, explicitly pro-corporate Republicans like Scott Walker and Rob Portman and Ron Johnson.

But the problem here is that it’s only one variable. It might be true that Sanders would not have been a better candidate than Clinton because of ideological positioning, and indeed I find the argument that Hillary Clinton lost because she was perceived as not being left-wing enough massively implausible and not supported by meaningful evidence. But Hillary Clinton had other liabilities as a candidate. I don’t see Sanders getting very positive general election coverage from a media convinced that cutting entitlements is an objectively desirable goal, but it’s also fair to say that the risk is pretty much all upside. I don’t see the FBI being thrilled about a Sanders candidacy, but would they have found a way to throw the election? Again, pretty much all upside. Maybe Wikileaks would have still been pro-Trump, maybe not. And there’s no way of weighting all of these factors and figuring out how they would have played out in a different context.

Would Sanders have won? I have no idea. But I also don’t see any basis for assuming that he couldn’t have. We just don’t know.

I still think Kamala Harris. Or Michelle Obama if they can convince her to run.

Second Kamala Harris. I like John Hickenlooper, Colorado's governor, quite a bit. Not only has he governed Colorado well, but he's a cool dude. He opened one of the state's first microbreweries in the late 80s after he got laid off from his job. He's not overly charismatic, though.

Sanders would have beaten Trump easily.Many republican voters held their noses and voted for him only because the alternative was even worse.That election was more about who people didn’t want in office, and Hillary was terrifying.

But this is the 2020 democratic nominee thread.If he is fit The Bern will run.If he runs The Bern will win the nomination.FACT.

Just in case any intelligent but less informed commentators might think Bones has a point:

Quote:

It is impossible to say what would have happened under a fictional scenario, but Sanders supporters often dangle polls from early summer showing he would have performed better than Clinton against Trump. They ignored the fact that Sanders had not yet faced a real campaign against him. Clinton was in the delicate position of dealing with a large portion of voters who treated Sanders more like the Messiah than just another candidate. She was playing the long game—attacking Sanders strongly enough to win, but gently enough to avoid alienating his supporters. Given her overwhelming support from communities of color—for example, about 70 percent of African-American voters cast their ballot for her—Clinton had a firewall that would be difficult for Sanders to breach.

When Sanders promoted free college tuition—a primary part of his platform that attracted young people—that didn’t mean much for almost half of all Democrats, who don’t attend—or even plan to attend—plan to attend a secondary school. In fact, Sanders was basically telling the working poor and middle class who never planned to go beyond high school that college students—the people with even greater opportunities in life—were at the top of his priority list.

So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

Could Sanders still have won? Well, Trump won, so anything is possible. But Sanders supporters puffing up their chests as they arrogantly declare Trump would have definitely lost against their candidate deserve to be ignored.

Just in case any intelligent but less informed commentators might think Bones has a point:

Quote:

It is impossible to say what would have happened under a fictional scenario, but Sanders supporters often dangle polls from early summer showing he would have performed better than Clinton against Trump. They ignored the fact that Sanders had not yet faced a real campaign against him. Clinton was in the delicate position of dealing with a large portion of voters who treated Sanders more like the Messiah than just another candidate. She was playing the long game—attacking Sanders strongly enough to win, but gently enough to avoid alienating his supporters. Given her overwhelming support from communities of color—for example, about 70 percent of African-American voters cast their ballot for her—Clinton had a firewall that would be difficult for Sanders to breach.

When Sanders promoted free college tuition—a primary part of his platform that attracted young people—that didn’t mean much for almost half of all Democrats, who don’t attend—or even plan to attend—plan to attend a secondary school. In fact, Sanders was basically telling the working poor and middle class who never planned to go beyond high school that college students—the people with even greater opportunities in life—were at the top of his priority list.

So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

Could Sanders still have won? Well, Trump won, so anything is possible. But Sanders supporters puffing up their chests as they arrogantly declare Trump would have definitely lost against their candidate deserve to be ignored.

No source. Classic chuckles.

Not that I agree with the above, but you'd pass off a similarly attributed article as being from some dark place in the internet that you wouldn't link to.

Sanders would have beaten Trump easily.Many republican voters held their noses and voted for him only because the alternative was even worse.That election was more about who people didn’t want in office, and Hillary was terrifying.

But this is the 2020 democratic nominee thread.If he is fit The Bern will run.If he runs The Bern will win the nomination.FACT.

The Bern is also the most popular politician in the States.Wisconsin ,pensylvania and Michigan would be in the bag for him,some of of the swing states like Florida as well methinks.If he's still alive by then he would be the Democrats' best ticket to the WH

Just in case any intelligent but less informed commentators might think Bones has a point:

Quote:

It is impossible to say what would have happened under a fictional scenario, but Sanders supporters often dangle polls from early summer showing he would have performed better than Clinton against Trump. They ignored the fact that Sanders had not yet faced a real campaign against him. Clinton was in the delicate position of dealing with a large portion of voters who treated Sanders more like the Messiah than just another candidate. She was playing the long game—attacking Sanders strongly enough to win, but gently enough to avoid alienating his supporters. Given her overwhelming support from communities of color—for example, about 70 percent of African-American voters cast their ballot for her—Clinton had a firewall that would be difficult for Sanders to breach.

When Sanders promoted free college tuition—a primary part of his platform that attracted young people—that didn’t mean much for almost half of all Democrats, who don’t attend—or even plan to attend—plan to attend a secondary school. In fact, Sanders was basically telling the working poor and middle class who never planned to go beyond high school that college students—the people with even greater opportunities in life—were at the top of his priority list.

So what would have happened when Sanders hit a real opponent, someone who did not care about alienating the young college voters in his base? I have seen the opposition book assembled by Republicans for Sanders, and it was brutal. The Republicans would have torn him apart. And while Sanders supporters might delude themselves into believing that they could have defended him against all of this, there is a name for politicians who play defense all the time: losers.

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

Could Sanders still have won? Well, Trump won, so anything is possible. But Sanders supporters puffing up their chests as they arrogantly declare Trump would have definitely lost against their candidate deserve to be ignored.

No source. Classic chuckles.

Not that I agree with the above, but you'd pass off a similarly attributed article as being from some dark place in the internet that you wouldn't link to.

I don't post anything without links and I don't post the stuff that I wouldn't link to as you could find the origin by Google search.

Further, I'm not giving chuckles a hard time because I couldn't find the source if I wanted to but that he didn't post it to begin with. He does it all the time and in that particular case was important as he was making an argument from authority ( not always the fallacy twats claim it to be).